Letters ‘could af­fect’ death penalty re­view

“His words in the letters let the public see that he pleads guilty and re­pents his wrong­do­ing,” said Jiang Ji­awei, a 28-year-oldShang­haires­i­dent. “This is the first step to gain for­give­ness from the public.”

Fa­vor­able public opin­ion would win him fa­vor in the fi­nal de­ci­sion of the na­tion’s high­est court, said law­ex­perts.

Yi Shenghua, a Bei­jing­based crim­i­nal lawyer, said that 10 to 15 per­cent of the death penalty cases re­viewed ev­ery year are over­turned.

“The ra­tio is around 50 per­cent when it comes to mur­der cases that in­volve one vic­tim and that fall into the cat­e­gory of per­sonal con­flict and the de­fen­dant pro­poses com­pen­sa­tion,” he said.

“The media and public at­ten­tion on a case would make an im­pact on its fi­nal ver­dict,” he added.

Li Yun­long, chair­man of the Crim­i­nol­ogy Re­search Coun­cil of Jiangxi province, said that ac­cord­ing to the cur­rent poli­cies con­cern­ing the death penalty, Lin does not fall into the cat­e­gory of those who must face a death sen­tence.

“His con­fes­sion might bring a fa­vor­able turn, and there’s some prob­a­bil­ity that he can be re­prieved from the death penalty,” he said.